Baracani Homers, Drives in 5 RBI's, Thunderbirds Win 13-10

Glendale, AZ - The Mesa Thunderbirds drove in a bakers dozen Thursday afternoon in the opening game of the Region I / ACCAC DII tournament as they defeated the Scottsdale Artichokes, 13-10.

With the win, Mesa will now play the host school, Glendale, Friday morning at 10:30 am.  The winner of that game will move on to Saturday's final day while the loser will fight it out the Artichokes in the losers game at 2 pm.

Scottsdale scored one in the top of the first but it was Mesa who then scored two in the bottom half of first, followed by four runs in the second inning and six runs in the third to take a commanding 10-1 lead after three innings.  

In all, Mesa collected 21 total hits, seven of which went for extra bases with the big hit coming off the bat of Dawson Baracani, a three run bopper to left field. 

The T-Birds stayed balanced at the plate, spraying the ball to all parts of the field.

On the day, Baracani finished 3-5, a triple shy of the cycle, with five runs batted in.  Josh Leslie went 4-5 with two doubles with two runs batted in with Connor Culp going 3-5.  Kaeden Camat-Toki, Lucas Danielewicz, Zach Wagner, Cade Malone, and Dean Bittner each collected two hits.

On the mound, Mesa used Connor Coerper, Zachary Webster, Jonathan Weiss and Mitchell Torres, with Webster earning the victory and Torres earning the save.